Fire Emblem: Shooting Star
by FightingThunder720
Summary: Mist Tiamat has always had an ordinary life...but that all ends when the enigmatic Ike Paris collapses on her doorstep. As she and her adoptive mother Titania take him in, more and more questions arise about the boy—who is he? Why is he so protective of Mist? And what's his connection to Zero, the mysterious superhero who's suddenly appeared in their town? (Mega Man Star Force AU.)
1. Chapter 1: A Traveler in Crimson

**Author's Note: I own nothing. All credit for the Fire Emblem and Mega Man series (and all properties within) should go to Intelligent Systems and Capcom respectively.**

* * *

 **FE STAR FORCE**

 **PROLOGUE: A TRAVELER IN CRIMSON**

 **BEGIN TRANSMISSION**

* * *

The streets of Caldea were quiet at night. There were few cars, and fewer people.

That was something everyone accepted without a thought-that was simply how the town was, had always been, and always would be...unless you looked a little closer.

Unless you could see more the average person.

To the average person, roads belonged on the ground.

But to the keenest of eyes, roads wound through to sky as well.

These "waveroads," as they were called, were invisible to the naked eye-and yet very much present.

And if you looked very, very closely on this particular night...you might see a traveler upon those roads.

A traveler cloaked in crimson.

The warrior known as Zero quite literally dashed down the waveroad at light speed, a red streak upon a kaleidoscope of colors.

Normally, he would apologize to the Mr. Hertz he'd blown past on the way, but this was a special case-he was being pursued. Losing a millisecond could be fatal.

He tilted his head briefly to see how far behind his foes were.

They were hot on his heels, of course—and naturally, they were all FM-ians with hosts. _They never send anything less than their strongest, do they?_

 **I don't think I need to tell you this, but your situation is looking pretty bleak here,** a voice chimed in.

 _Yeah, Yune, I know...but we've faced worse odds before, haven't we?_

Zero gauged his distance from the nearest waveroad below him and jumped onto it, hoping to shake them. This tactic was at least partially successful-one of his foes kept careening forward until he was far out of range. The other four stayed on him.

 **That trick's not gonna work again, you know.**

 _Well, I guess it's a good thing I'm so gods-damned full of surprises, huh?_ Zero snarked as he let his feet slide out from under him, using his dash thrusters as emergency brakes before unceremoniously pratfalling. Two of his pursuers were too slow to react and went careening past an "Under Maintenence" sign, falling to their deaths.

Zero grimaced, brushing off some fragments of energy as he got up from the "ground." _Oof._ _Not doing_ that _again unless I have to._

The trio of warriors who remained were already charging—clearly, they weren't too happy about their allies being dead. He quickly shifted into a defensive stance, checking his Battle Cards—Recover 50, Brave Sword, Heat Ball, Gatling Gun, Invisible, and Cannon were all ready for use.

 **I hope you're ready, kid—a three-on-one fight is one hell of an uphill battle, even for you.**

 _I know._

 ** _"You want some? Then come and get it!"_** Zero yelled arrogantly, making the occasional rude gesture as he dodged blows. He hated putting on this cocky facade in battle, but it helped to make his human form harder to identify.

Putting on a tough persona while hiding behind a false name was a tactic that predated Wave technology—hell, it was probably as old as Internet technology—but it was still extremely effective. And if it let him survive another day, he would stoop as low as he needed to.

Zero lashed out at the first enemy who lunged with his standard saber, before unleashing a Cannon blast right into their chest. The man went flying with a decidedly unmanly scream of pain.

 _...I almost feel bad for the guy._

 **That makes one of us.**

 _None of us, actually—I said "almost" for a reason,_ Zero noted as he locked blades with the second FM-ian.

He instantly saw the difference between the fighting styles of the (now-deceased) foe he'd slain previously and the new guy.

Yes, this second one was definitely their leader. They were stronger and faster than the others—Zero had to activate his Brave Sword just to hold back their attacks, and even then he was taking a few glancing hits.

So focused was he on his duel with the leader that he didn't see the third FM warrior coming from behind him until it was too late to avoid the incoming Poison Knuckle attack from behind.

Almost instantly, he doubled over, gasping—were he in his human form, he would be throwing up right about now. Gods, it hurt...And the poison from the attack was starting to sap away his strength.

 _We need to end this...fast..._

 **Hang in there, kid. For now, you oughta use that Recover 50 you loaded up.**

 _R-right..._

Recover 50 helped to alleviate some of the pain from his wounds, but it didn't do anything to reverse the damage done to his armor.

 _Another hit like that, and I'm toast..._

He stood back up, firing a wide-range blast with Gatling Gun that struck both FM-ians before rushing in with a few slashes of his saber. He landed a few light blows, but between his nausea and the effects of Poison Knuckle, it was clear he wouldn't be able to outlast them once he was out of cards.

 _All I have left is Heat Ball and Invisible...Y-Yune, I don't think this is a fight we can win._

 **Now is probably a good time to run, then. Make a break for it while you still have the energy to escape them.**

It was sound advice—advice he decided to take to heart. But before he could make his move, the leader struck out at him with a Break Saber. Zero cried out in pain, clutching his chest as he stumbled backwards.

Throwing down his Heat Ball to create a smokescreen, he quickly activated his Invisible card and dashed away. He needed to find a good place to pulse out—somewhere they wouldn't find him.

Soaring over the town, Zero spotted a cottage surrounded by trees. He could hide himself there. Just as his invisibility was petering out, he leaped off the waveroad, using his thrusters to slow his descent. Even with his thrusters, however, the impact was hard—he felt the wind being knocked out of him as he hit the ground, and was momentarily left gasping for air.

As soon as he caught his breath, he pulsed out. He was no longer Zero, the brave warrior of the Wave World. Now he was just Ike, the boy with no home, no parents, and nothing but his clothes, an alien, and a disturbingly large amount of Zenny to keep him company.

Ike immediately noticed two things upon returning to his solid state—first, that he didn't feel any less pain than he had before. Secondly, he was still losing strength. As he tried to get up, the problem soon became obvious—the effects of the foe's attacks were lingering, even on his real body.

In other words, he was still bleeding. Profusely.

 _That can only mean one thing,_ he mused. _Those attacks didn't just damage my armor, they penetrated straight through it and hit my real body._

He felt a horrible sense of dread overcome him as he doubled over and vomited, realizing just how deep of a pit he'd fallen into.

 _I don't know how bad these wounds are. I don't know how long I can retain consciousness for. I don't even know where the nearest hospital is._

There was one thing he _did_ know, though. There was a house _somewhere_ around here. He'd seen it all the way from the waveroad. The lights had been on, indicating that people were home.

 _If...if I can just make it there in time..._

Trying desperately to stem the flow of blood from his wounds, Ike stumbled forward, ignoring the agony that accompanied every step he took.

He had to make it.

 _I have to survive...no matter how much it hurts...no matter what...happens..._

* * *

Mist Tiamat was a light sleeper—even the slightest of sounds could wake her. So when she heard footstepsoutside the house, she was quick to investigate. _A door-to-door salesman, maybe?_ She pulled open the door slowly, reciting her usual response to such people."We don't want to join your Church, we don't want to buy your vacuum cleaner, and we _certainly_ don't want to-"

She choked on her words instantly as she took in the scene before her—a boy, perhaps a few years her senior, struggled to hold himself upright with the aid of one of the columns on her porch. In the dim lighting, Mist could make out a small trail of blood. The boy looked up at her, giving her a pained glance before finally falling to the ground, unconscious.

She let out a horrified scream as she realized what had just happened.

* * *

 **FE STAR FORCE**

 **PROLOGUE: A TRAVELER IN CRIMSON**

 **END TRANSMISSION**

* * *

As people seem to be quite fond of saying these days, "Please rate and review!" Feedback is greatly appreciated, especially since it's (unsurprisingly) rather difficult to come up with good plot ideas for such a silly crossover. So, uh, yeah. You do that. I'll be, uh...writing. Whenever I have time. That isn't being spent screwing around with ROM hacking tools/playing video games.

...Look, we all have our needs, okay?

Another thing of note:

I'm using the Japanese names of characters (or in the case of Ike, his beta name) as their last names if they don't have any confirmed surnames. Mist is an exception to this rule—she uses Tiamat as her surname for reasons that will be revealed soon.


	2. Chapter 2: Good Cop, Bad Cop

**FE STAR FORCE**

 **CHAPTER 1: GOOD COP, BAD COP**

 **BEGIN TRANSMISSION**

* * *

Titania Tiamat had been shaken, to say the least, when her adoptive daughter had screamed bloody murder in the middle of the night.

She had been confused when she found a young man collapsed on her porch.

She had been _horrified_ when she saw the wounds—the skin that had been practically flayed off his chest, the stab wound in his side, the dozens of smaller cuts on his legs, the head wound, and the _gaping hole gouged in his back._

But she was the chief of the Satellite Police. More than anyone else, she had to be strong and rational, even in the face of such horror. "Mist. _Mist!_ " She grabbed the girl by the shoulders, speaking louder when she didn't respond the first time.

"Mom...oh, gods, is he-"

"...He's still alive. And it's up to us to keep him that way for a little while longer. You go call an ambulance, and I'll...take care of him."

* * *

 _Ike's world burned around him._

 _All he'd ever known, loved, and cared about had just gone up in flames._

 _As the six-year-old pulled himself out of a pile of wreckage—bleeding, scared, and confused—he sobbed. To him, it was Armageddon. The world was ending, and for some reason he was caught up in it._

Is this my fault? Did I do something to cause this?

 _He couldn't help but blame himself. Surely this was punishment for...something. Things this horrible didn't just_ happen, _right?_

 _He coughed and gasped, struggling for air amid the layer of smoke, but he ran anyways, holding on tightly to the last family he had—his infant sister. Another volley of bombs crashed around him. The sound was nearly deafening._

 _Amidst the flames, he saw a figure—at first, he'd thought it to be a rescuer, a knight in shining armor, but as he drew closer an ever-growing voice in head told him something was horribly_ wrong _about this person._

 _Their armor was an oily black, and something he couldn't make out was_ moving, crawling _along the surface._

 _As the figure turned, he knew with absolute certainty that this was no savior. This was something old and cruel and dark and heartless, something that would annihilate him in an instant if it found the idea amusing._

 _And it was staring straight at him with two unfeeling craters for eyes that burned with_ fire that could only exist in hell because fire wasn't black and cold and silent and dead

 _and skin made of burning-cold steel forged from the remains of the core of some_ long-dead, frozen star that had no name because it was the final fate of everything and in the end nothing had a name because nothing was left to name us

 _and hands that were not hands, but heads with thousands and millions and trillions of_ eyes that should not and could not and did not exist and gazed into him and front of him and past him into everything else that was or ever could be

 _He looked into the abyss._

 _And its many eyes stared back into him._

 _And he asked the abyss..._

 _"Why?"_

 _But the void knew not the reason._

 _As he gazed into that infinite emptiness, something inhuman gripped the boy's mind with a nameless fear. It spoke in his mind words he would never forget, words that would haunt him for the rest of his life._

 _ **"You...You're still alive. Clinging to life, yet for what purpose? Why do you want to live so desperately, O son of fate?"**_

* * *

Ike woke up quite suddenly. There was no scream, nothing that could betray his terror were it not for the rapidly beeping device— _a heart monitor?—_ to his left.

He'd grown good at concealing fear, even in a half-conscious state such as this. Hell, it was almost an automatic process at this point. He tried to prop himself up with one arm, but found himself too weak to do so. He hissed as his left arm buckled under his weight, and all he got for his effort was a searing pain in his left half. Giving up on moving for the time being, he stared at his surroundings—a white room with no notable features. His arm felt too light. Where was Yune?

Someone—a nurse, probably—called some sort of order to the others in the room.

There was some movement, some more muffled speech— _about me,_ he figured.

A few times he was certain they were addressing him. Not that Ike could comprehend a word that they were saying. He knew the words, but the meanings kept slipping through his grasp. He looked at them helplessly, but couldn't reply to what he could only assume was their questions.

A wave of tiredness washed over him. Even this tiny amount of mental exertion had left him confused and strained.

He didn't want to go back to sleep, but exhaustion consumed him in minutes anyways.

* * *

Titania was cooking dinner when she received the call.

Ever since the incident five days ago, there had been a sense of apprehension lingering throughout the house—a question never asked aloud, but always wondered by both her and her daughter: _How much longer?_

The boy had been rushed to the hospital, and they'd been called just a day later when the staff deigned him to be in a stable condition, albeit in a coma.

Unfortunately, there'd been no identifying documents or items on his person, save for his Transer, which was locked with a password. Fingerprint identification had turned up nothing—he seemingly wasn't registered in any Crimean fingerprint database—and nobody had stepped up to claim the boy as a relative.

They'd visited his room every day after that—his condition had improved quickly, though not unusually so. The last time she'd seen him, his wounds were mostly scabbed over, and although his skin was still slightly pale from anemia, it was a vast improvement over what he'd looked like initially.

They hadn't called since, and although Titania supposed that was better than a death notice, she still worried.

How long would they have to wait for him to wake up?

Days? Months? A year?

 _Forever?_

Titania shuddered, stirring the pot of spaghetti sauce faster as if doing so would somehow bury the thought faster. She didn't want to think about the possibility of—

The phone rang.

Turning down the stove's heat temporarily, she left to grab the phone. Her eyes lit up as she saw who was calling: _Dr. Rhys Kilroy._ She excitedly snatched up the device and took the call as quickly as possible.

"Rhys!" She exclaimed, hopeful that the news was good.

"Hey, Miss Tiamat. I came to call you about your friend...he actually woke up yesterday."

 _"What?"_ Titania nearly shouted. "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm not joking. It was only for a few minutes, but he was looking around. Pulled out his own IV on accident and scared the crap out of us. His heart rate spiked _really_ high for a minute, too—we thought he was in shock or something! He's woken up a few times since, too, though still only temporarily."

"So he's going to wake up for real eventually?" Titania pressed.

"Yeah. With the rate he's recovering, he might wake up fully within the day."

Two parts of her were anticipating this moment for very different reasons. One half of her—the "concerned mother" half—was just glad he was going to be okay. The other half of her—the half that was an officer of the Satellite Police—was _very_ suspicious about the circumstances of his injury.

An animal couldn't— _wouldn't—_ do that to somebody unless they were already dead. Any animal that lived around here would have gone for the throat.

Whatever this was, it was very deliberately perpetrated by a _person._ And that presented a few prominent possibilities in her mind—a few very frightening possibilities.

When this all started, Titania never would've believed that she'd be considering suicide as the least frightening possibility, but here she was now.

Suddenly, this seemed a lot bigger than an isolated case.

* * *

 ** _When can be we there?_**

* * *

Mist was getting dressed after a shower when her mom burst in. Reflexively, she shrieked and slammed the door shut.

"Mom! Get _out!_ I'm don't have my shirt on yet!"

"Sorry, sorry... You'll want to hear about what I have to say, though. That boy we found—he's awake."

Mist poked her head out of the door. _"_ Sorry, _what?"_

"He's been slipping in and out of consciousness for the last day, apparently," Titania explained. "Head out to the car once you get dressed—we've got a hospital to visit."

* * *

"You're all clear to enter. Just be careful, though. We don't know what happened to him, or what his mental state could be—if he panics once he goes lucid, he might have to be restrained," Rhys remarked as Titania and her daughter entered the patient's room.

The boy was in his usual state—quietly laying prone in the bed. He rarely moved at all aside from the mandatory action of breathing.

He was actually fairly tall and had a bit of muscle to him, but to Mist he looked so... _fragile,_ just laying there.

Fragile and alone.

Just as she did every day, Mist pulled up a chair and grabbed his right hand and held it for a few moments.

It was irrational, she knew—an unconscious person wouldn't know whether she was holding their hand or not. But even so, she held onto it in the hopes that maybe the gesture would reach him.

Just as she was about to let go, something happened. She felt his fingers close around her smaller ones with a nearly crushing force, before easing their grip somewhat when she protested.

Mist looked on as a pair of lapis-colored eyes slid open, and a soft-yet-gravelly voice spoke:

"...Where...?"

* * *

Ike had a pounding headache as he felt himself being pulled out of sleep.

He could feel something wrapped around his left hand. He gripped the small thing, trying to figure out what exactly it was. As he did so, he heard a squeak of pain from somewhere and immediately loosened his grasp.

There was somebody else here. Somebody holding his hand— _helping_ him.

 _Alright, I can work with that._

Ike opened his eyes just a crack, trying to identify his apparent benefactor. His eyes alighted on a young girl—he guessed she was at least 4 or 5 years younger than him.

Recognition zapped through his mind as he recalled the events leading up to this, and his eyes opened fully.

"...Where...?" He began to speak, but his voice cracked before he could speak another word. Taking another breath, he finished his question: "...Where am I?"

He hadn't realized how raspy his voice had become. He supposed it was from disuse—rarely did he ever actually need to speak aloud. Talking to Yune was essentially a telepathic process, and he spent most of his time Wave-Shifted unless he was eating or needed to buy something.

"Oh! Um...we're at the hospital right now," the girl began. "You were, uh..." She trailed off, and an older woman with red hair and a professional air about her picked up where the girl had stopped.

"You were found badly injured outside our house—you've been out for about a week," she stated. "You're safe now."

"I see." In all honesty, he was still wary—nothing but strong lead walls could truly keep his enemies out—but he also realized his foes likely presumed him to be dead. Yune was safely in his Transer and thus undetectable, and none of the FM-ians, at least to his knowledge, actually knew what he looked like outside of his persona as Zero.

Exempting extraordinary circumstances, he _was_ safe.

"...Thanks." He left it at that.

...Besides, what more was there to say? All that was left to do was for him to pick up his things and get moving.

He moved to stand up, only to find himself quickly being pinned back down by the older woman. It was then that he noticed the badge. _Satellite Police...that's bad news for me._

"Just where do you think you're going?" She asked, clearly not in the mood to broach the subject. "You're not leaving until we get some answers. What _happened_ to you?"

"Mom!" the younger girl protested.

"Leave this to the adults, Mist."

"Adults? I bet he's not even 18!" "Mist" retorted, but soon relented.

Ike hesitated for a moment. He wasn't exactly a social genius, but even he knew that "I fell down" wasn't going to cut it here. This woman obviously wasn't stupid. "I won't repeat myself again. _What. Happened?_ "

"Ah..." He began to speak, but really had no idea what to say. Luckily, the door to his room opened, and a man stepped in.

"Titania! I-I understand your need to gather information about this case, but this is _absurd!_ " The man's voice started out soft, but escalated slightly towards the end of his sentence in a clear _don't-fuck-with-my-patients_ sort of way.

 _Oh, thank Yune._

"But Rhys-!" The woman—Titania, as she was called—complained. Ike used the time in which she looked away wisely, pulling his top half up into a more defensible position against the wall and wrapping his arms around his chest. He would rather deal with the discomfort of leaning on a wall than have that woman smash her palm into his already-abused ribs again.

"How dense _are_ you? He's been out cold for a week! He's in pain! _He was nearly murdered!_ He doesn't need any additional trauma this week, Officer Tiamat, and I will _not_ permit you to interrogate him right now. Doctor's orders. Now you can quit badgering him or get out."

Carefully angling his head so that Titania didn't see, he gave Ike an aside wink.

Ike respected the good doctor (and he clearly _was_ a good doctor—the man had saved him from the brink of death, after all) almost instantly.

"Have it your way, Rhys," Titania muttered. "I'm taking you home once you've recovered, by the way." Ike stared at her. He didn't even _have_ a home.

"Not to your home. _My_ home. Clearly whatever environment you've been living in is..." she paused, as if looking for the right words. "...Less than optimal. It'd be best for you to have somewhere to go back to until we can figure what we're supposed to do with you."

 _So she thinks I'm some kind of abuse case? Or just homeless? Better to stay nondescript, then. Let her think what she wants—it can't be as strange as the truth._

"If that's settled, could you at least fill out these forms for me?" Rhys—or "Dr. Kilroy," as his name tag called him—asked, proffering a small stack of papers and a pen. "You don't seem to have any identification on you, and we couldn't find anyone matching your description in our database. T-This would all stay strictly confidential, of course. We really just need the first sheet, but it'd be nice if you could fill out the others at some point as well.

"...Right." He took the pen gingerly, fumbling with it for a moment before resting it into a position that felt right.

When was the last time he'd had to write?

He filled out most of the blanks on the first page with ease—name, age, date of birth, birthplace, et cetera. The parts he was uncertain of he left blank. When he was finished, he handed the form back to the doctor. "If you're worried about the bills, by the way, don't," he remarked. "I've got money to spare." The doctor gave him an odd look. "Duly noted. It says here you're one Ike Paris, age 17, from..." he trailed off. "I must have something in my eye...no, no, holy...I actually read that right...Uh, Miss Tiamat, I'm gonna need to talk to you in private."

Mist looked over at Ike as the two adults in the room left. Ike tried to shrug, but pain lanced through his spine halfway through the action.

* * *

"There's no way in hell Ohma is his actual hometown, Titania. The entire city was glassed to hell and back 12 years ago. If there's no records, then he wasn't evacuated beforehand. He would've been _five!_ There's just no way..." Rhys sighed. "There's no way somebody so young could survive _that_ on his own. It's impossible."

Titania combed a hand through her hair. "Rhys, if my time in the force has taught me anything, it's that crazy things just happen sometimes. Unless you've got a better explanation for why he doesn't appear in _any_ records at all, this is the best we've got." She glanced back through the glass doors.

 _Nothing is impossible, only improbable..._

 _Right, Commander?_

* * *

Titania was right. Strange things happened every day—he'd seen all sorts of oddities in his time. This was just one more improbability. Rhys was still curious as to how exactly the teen had survived, though he imagined Ike wasn't going to give him a reliable answer. Aside from the problem of even getting the kid to answer his questions (which he seemed reluctant to do), he imagined the youth would have holes in his memory—if not from dissociation due to trauma, then from how old the memories were.

He sighed. "You might want to leave soon. Visiting hours are close to ending, and I need to go through all this paperwork."

"Of course." There was some speech as the officer left, daughter in tow. Then all was quiet, and Rhys returned to his office, where he immediately held his head in his hands.

Something Ike had said that disturbed Rhys, more so than the boy's hometown.

 _If you're worried about the bills, don't. I've got money to spare._

What the hell had _that_ meant? Was it true? The anesthetics clearly hadn't worn off fully, so perhaps he was confused. And if it was true, where was he getting that money?

 _Rhys, you're a doctor,_ he berated himself. _Leave the police things to Titania. Focus on making him not die._

Even after that self-induced tongue-lashing, Rhys couldn't shake those dark thoughts out of his mind.

He could only hope time would provide answers.

* * *

Moonlight filtered through the curtains of Ike's room, bathing the room in silver. A cold draft of blew in, and he shuddered, pulling the inadequate blankets up towards his face. He'd realized recently that he was missing his Transer, and he felt naked without it.

He hoped it—and by extension, Yune—would find its way back to him soon. He couldn't bring himself to fall asleep while he was alone; not when he knew it would only be a restless sleep, pursued by the horrors of the night.

So he laid there, awake.

And he shivered, remembering loneliness for the first time in years.

* * *

 **END TRANSMISSION**

* * *

 **Whoo-ie, that took a long time to push out! It's like when you spend 10 minutes trying to take a dump, only to find that it was just one measly little coin-sized turd.**

 **I ended up changing what I wanted to do halfway through and then losing motivation briefly, then I lost my iPad's fancy magnetic keyboard thingie and discovered typing in FFN without it is _super_ laggy on iOS for some reason. Then I found the keyboard and re-wrote the whole chapter a _third_ time before I came up with something I liked enough to release. **

**Hope you liked it, and if you find any errors, feel free to PM me.**

 **Constructive criticism is heavily encouraged!**


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